Out of Place
by Precambrian Studios
Summary: The Paperpusher's Message board. It's the most active Daria fan-site on the internet; some of its members have been writing fan-fiction for over a decade, and most have encyclopedic knowledge of the show. What if they suddenly, for no discernible reason, ended up inside the show they all cherish?


Awaiting the arrival of the car with trepidation, the student with orange-brown hair felt immense excitement as it finally pulled up in front of Lawndale High. He recited the line in his head over and over again, just to make sure that he would not screw it up. For a moment, he glanced at another student decked out entirely in black sitting on the stairs leading up to the front entrance, who was shaking his head slowly in disapproval.

The blue sedan pulled up. He put on his most confident face and stepped forward, so excited he felt like screaming. The girl with orange hair had barely said "Quinn Morgendorffer" before he blurted out, "Will go out with me?"

She glanced in his direction, and he felt rooted to the spot. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. "Maaaaybe," she cooed, smiling. He smiled, watching her as she walked away with the rest of the Fashion Club.

The student wearing entirely black walked up alongside her admirer. "Smooth, Dusty. Smooth."

'Dusty' shot him an irritated look. "Lay off, PCS. I can do whatever I want."

"We still don't know what's going on here…" He lowered his voice to a low whisper. "I just don't want us to interfere too much."

Dusty sighed. "I get where you're coming from, man," he admitted. "But it's Quinn Morgendorffer! Quinn!"

PCS looked beyond 'Dusty' and looked at a tall boy with a WWE shirt staring at amazement, as well as his slightly portly companion with the faintest hints of a beard on his chin, staring at Daria as she walked through the main doors. "I just hope nobody's going to get carried away like I did."

Laughing, Dusty noted "I think everyone's been scared straight by that, don't worry."

PCS shrugged. "You want to go tell them," he said, pointing inside the building, "Or them?" indicating a pay-phone over by the parking lot.

"I'll call Rick, you tell them."

"All right." PCS jogged up the stairs and into the school. Dusty sprinted to the pay-phone. Quickly, he slipped a quarter into the slot and dialed.

Inside a boarding house at the end of Dega Street, a man with a slight mustache on his lip picked up the phone. He was Richard Lobinske: administrator of the PPMB and collectively known as "The Bug Guy." He said, "Hello?"

"They're here," Dusty breathed excitedly.

Lobinske swallowed. "Just remember, don't do anything stupid. Same goes for everyone else, make sure to tell them too."

"Got it." Dusty hung up.

XXXX

Two students leaned against the lockers in the hallway. One, a girl with long, brown hair, was staring longingly at a picture, the other, a boy, had sandy-blonde hair and glasses. He noticed the tears in her eyes. "We'll get back, don't worry," he reassured her.

She fronwed. "Mm?" She wiped at her eyes. "Oh, it's not that." She carefully folded the photo and put it into her backpack. "It's just that these contacts are killing me. I can't wait until I get a new pair of specs."

The boy smirked. "You think we should warn her that getting contacts is a bad idea?"

She shook her head. "No way. You know what Richard said. 'Strictly observant.' Kinda like the Doctor."

He gave her a skeptical look. "The Doctor interferes A LOT more than he observes."

"Okay, bad example," she admitted.

"If you had cited 'The Sound of Thunder' that would have had me on the floor." He scratched at some of the acne on his face. "What REALLY does suck about this whole thing, is that we all have to go through puberty all over again." He cursed when he accidentally irritated one particularly large pimple.

The girl smirked. "Yeah, that's a definite minus."

The boy checked his watch, and nervously began to tap his foot against the floor. "It's getting late. Maybe today's not the day?"

The girl tilted her head to see past the boy, just in time to see PCS sprint around the corner. She and the bespectacled boy ran to meet him. " Are they here?"

Through labored breathing, PCS panted, "Yeah….coming…good…..luck." And with that, he ran back the way he had came.

The two knew what they had to do. Immediately, they set off to the school's entrance, where they set eyes on Daria and Quinn. The boy and girl exchanged amazed glances, and swallowing their urge to talk to them, they quietly sat down on a bench in the corner.

The bell rang. Students quickly began running to their first class of the morning. In the crowd, more whispers of "Good luck" could be heard.

A few minutes after the crowds had dispersed, Angela Li appeared, a clip-board in hand. "Now, let's see," she mumbled as she dragged her pencil down the paper. "Morgendorffer?"

"Here," Quinn chirped.

"Present," Daria intoned.

"LeFaye?" The girl with an ankh around her neck raised her hand. The bespectacled boy quickly wrote something on his hand with the pen he kept in his pocket.

"Mills?"

The boy jumped up as though he had been addressed by a colonel. "Uh, hi."

"Bealer?"

The girl gave a half-hearted wave. "Here."

Li took the clip-board and placed it on the bench next to 'Mills.' He shuddered. "All right," she said. "Follow me, and we'll begin the tour."

He and the girl exchanged nervous glances as they followed the principal of Lawndale High, and their heroine, off into the depths of the school.


End file.
